Formula 1 may be gaining in the rearview, but Nascar is accelerating again.

The stock car racing circuit tapped the brakes on a period of dwindling or stagnant viewership last year, and Sunday’s Daytona 500 begins what executives believe could be a consequential new season. It’s the first under a $7.7 billion broadcast deal with Fox, NBC, TNT and Amazon. It will be the first with an NBA-style in-season tournament to liven up its long summer months, and the first to include a Cup event outside the U.S. in the circuit’s modern era, with a race in Mexico City.

Nascar executives believe those moves and more—like strategic investments in interactive platforms and gaming, collaborations in music and fashion, and a renewed Netflix documentary series—can further grow and diversify Nascar’s audience. They also believe it will make Nascar more attractive to brands, all while maintaining the pole position among motorsports in the U.S., a market that’s absorbed a surge from Formula 1 in recent years.

“We’re not trying to out-F1 F1 and we’re not trying to out-NFL the NFL,” Tim Clark, Nascar’s chief brand officer, said in an interview. “I think we feel really comfortable, confident and secure in our brand position and our product.”

Nascar’s TV ratings increased by a modest 1% last year to an average of 2.89 million viewers, but was a solid outcome given last year’s Daytona 500 was rained out and rescheduled on a Monday, leaving Nascar with a 27% ratings deficit to start the year. Nascar’s viewership, however, is several laps behind its pre-pandemic levels and even further behind the sport’s 1990s and early 2000s glory years. (Early weather forecasts are calling for clouds, wind and periodic showers in Daytona on Sunday.)

There are other areas of concern too. While sponsorships are on the rise, one of Nascar’s four “premier partners,” Geico, departed at the end of last year and has yet to be replaced. Nascar is also facing an image-sullying antitrust lawsuit brought by one of its high-profile teams, Michael Jordan’s 23XI racing and team co-owner Denny Hamlin, who is one of the sport’s most visible and popular drivers. The suit, which also includes the Front Row Motorsports team, alleges that Nascar charters unfairly limit teams from competing in other racing events and bind them to supply deals. The suit followed months of haggling over a revenue sharing deal. Nascar has pushed back on those charges.

Also read: 5 things marketers can learn from Formula 1 racing

Nascar vs. F1

One might never know from the buzz, but Nascar’s U.S. audience remains considerably larger than that of Formula 1 even if the latter is arguably sexier—and has a massive advantage globally. In head-to-head events held last Oct. 20, Nascar’s playoff race in Las Vegas on NBC (2.2 million average viewers) outdrew F1’s United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas (with 1.3 million average viewers on ABC). But in 2023, F1’s Miami race on ABC outdrew a rain-delayed Nascar race from Kansas on FS1. Formula 1’s U.S. ratings have exploded since its acquisition by Liberty Media in 2017 but more recently have plateaued. F1’s ratings on ESPN in 2024 were down by 3%, including a 30% drop for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, according to Black Book Motorsports.

IndyCar, the U.S.-based open wheel circuit, reportedly averaged over 1 million viewers per race last season on NBC—about even with Formula 1 on ESPN—and is speeding to its season opener March 2 behind a rubber-burning campaign from its new broadcaster, Fox, which has simultaneously been promoting the Daytona 500. The green flag drops for Formula 1 March 14.

“If you look at the numbers, Nascar is doing just fine, but F1 in the U.S. is growing much more rapidly, and so it feels like there’s more heat there,” said Munir Haddad, CEO of Kiosk Creative and a former EA Sports marketer.

F1’s spectacular U.S. arrival is bringing more attention to motorsports, which should benefit all racing circuits, Clark said. Nascar’s focus, though, is on its own track.

“At the end of the day we’re competing for eyeballs and for share, but I don’t think that growth of other motorsports properties, specifically F1, is anything but a positive,” Clark said. “Like any brand marketing, it comes down to the product. You can have the greatest awareness strategy in the world, but all that’s going to do is lead people to your product, so it had better resonate. And we’ve never felt better about the on-track competition. We’ll put it up against anyone.”

Advertising bases differ, with F1 tending to draw global brands and tech-focused companies and Nascar U.S.-based brands, particularly in the automotive, industrial and food/consumer goods fields. Propelled by the Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” F1’s audience is young, diverse and enthralled with competition among the circuit’s young drivers and team principals. Season 7 of “Drive to Survive” debuts March 7.  Nascar’s own Netflix documentary series “Nascar: Full Speed” focused on the drivers competing in the circuit’s 2023 playoffs. A second season is coming in April.

The global stardom of its drivers has helped F1 command a big social presence and a more effective connection with fans than Nascar, Haddad noted. F1 star Lewis Hamilton, for example, has more than 53 million followers across X, Facebook and Instagram. Nascar’s biggest social audiences belong to drivers Kyle Busch (2 million followers), Chase Elliott (1.9 million) and Hamlin (1.3 million).

“From a brand perspective, if you are targeting 18- to 25-year-olds who like to watch Netflix and spend a lot of time on Tiktok, F1 is maybe a more compelling brand to partner with,” said Quinten Rosborough, senior director of sports content at the agency Artemis Ward. “But if you are focused more on a traditional American audience, Nascar still has the eyeballs.”

Clark said what Nascar was learning most about from F1 was event marketing. “What got our attention was the event experience,” he said. “I think they do an unbelievable job of creating big events.”

Brand perception

Nascar’s expansion from its deep-South roots to a nationwide footprint in the 1990s and early 2000s coincided with the sport’s most successful era, but there were growing pains too.

Fans say much changed after Dale Earnhardt, the sport’s charismatic villain, died in a Daytona 500 crash in 2001. Subsequent moves to improve driver safety led to the introduction of the boxy “Car of Tomorrow” in 2008. But fans objected to its looks, and drivers didn’t like the way it performed.

Nascar’s attempts to infuse more meaning into its season—a playoff system first introduced in 2004 and modified multiple times, and a “stage racing” gimmick meant to create more point-winning moments—have met mixed reaction from fans. It’s presented Nascar with a common sports-league dilemma: balancing the need to evolve with the risk of alienating longtime fans.

An explosion of new racetracks in the early 2000s aided Nascar’s national footprint but several of the new venues proved entirely too large, and lacked the charm and racing action of the smaller facilities whose events they inherited. Nascar has since moved on from some of them, while other speedways have reduced capacity, including Daytona, which removed 46,000 seats as part of a renovation.

For most live sporting events, 65,000 is a capacity crowd, Clark noted. But if the venue seats 100,000, it contributes to a “perception problem” that’s dogged Nascar over the years, he said.

“I think the perception is that [Nascar] is a small regional sport, and kind of an also-ran in the lexicon of the stick-and-ball sports in the U.S.,” Clark said. “But if you look at all of the measurables, our media rights deal, our attendance figures, our TV ratings, all of those quantifiable numbers are very, very strong.”

Looking to bring racing closer to fans, Nascar has been experimenting with new markets recently, like the Los Angeles Coliseum and an F1-ish street race in Chicago, which has been a big winner. On June 15, Nascar will race in Mexico City—its first foreign Cup race since visiting Canada in 1958.

The sport has also worked to demonstrate it has moved beyond a reputation of being “old, white and Southern” as described by Steve Phelps, Nascar’s president, speaking recently in the Excellent Leadership Podcast. The organization officially banned Confederate flags at its events in 2020.

Brand integration

When it comes integration with brands, Nascar is virtually alone among U.S. sports.

“Some sports are trying to find if their fans are okay with putting a logo on a batting helmet or a jersey, but we have perfected that model,” Clark said. “I mean, there is no ambiguity about the brands that are integrated into Nascar.”

Nascar’s association with brands dates to its 1940s founding and drivers who hit up businesses for tire and gas money in exchange for exposure on the doors of their hot rods. That model still resonates today and fosters fan loyalty, Clark said.

“Our fans understand that this is not just the integration of a logo. The brands that the fans are seeing in our sport are very much part of what makes that team or that driver go,” Clark said. “When they see Shell and Pennzoil on Joey Logano’s car, they understand that the sponsorship dollars and the integration of that brand into that team and that driver are allowing them to be on the track and be competitive for wins and championships.”

With a heavy price tag—primary team sponsorships are estimated at $35 million annually, according to motorsports consultancy RTR Sports—race teams today are typically dividing primary sponsorship among several advertisers, a phenomenon that can confuse viewers as paint schemes on their favorite cars change week to week. But Clark compared it to the alternate uniform trend in ball sports.

Nascar’s brand base is growing and diversifying, according to Sponsor United, which tracks brand deals in sports. The number of different sponsors has increased by 18% over the last two years. “This is great from a diversification standpoint,” Sponsor United CEO Bob Lynch said. “It shows trust and ability to retain current partners while attracting new ones.”

Nascar race teams in 2024 saw a 7% increase in the number of deals, and Nascar tracks saw ad deals grow by 10%, Sponsor United added.

Nascar media opportunities go well beyond the hoods of cars, and the organization has made it easy for brands to shop that fragmented inventory, according to a sports marketing executive with motorsports experience, who asked not to be identified.

“If you’re interested in engaging the Nascar fan base on a national basis or on a hyper-local basis, you can almost go and have one conversation,” this person said. “You can say, ‘Hey, I want to leverage Nascar licensing rights. I want to be involved at the tracks. I want to have hosting and hospitality. I want to have a car branded. I want access to a driver.’ If you had the ability to come in with a denomination in the mid-seven figures, you could actually have a pretty healthy program across each one of those verticals.”

Nascar offers brands the opportunity to be “front-and-center” with fans, particularly when involving drivers, said Amy Creech, VP of partnerships for the sports agency 160over90.

“There are so many points of entry for brands to the sport depending on what their marketing initiatives and goals are whether at the league level or sponsoring a track and/or race in a key market,” Creech said. “But there’s no greater passion point to reach a fan than with the drivers themselves. If brands work with Nascar to grow and amplify those personalities, they can help existing fans double down and create new fans for up-and-coming drivers and the future stars of the sport.” 

STP and Goody’s are among the brands made famous by Richard Petty and Nascar exposure. Earnhardt fans were known to be fierce Budweiser and Chevrolet loyalists. Strong associations exist today between Austin Dillon and Bass Pro Shops. And beginning this year, Amazon Prime is advertising on Chase Elliott’s No. 9.

Geico’s departure leaves Nascar with three “premier partners”—sponsors that share top-level status in lieu of a single title brand. Coca-Cola, Busch Light and Xfinity (which just renewed its deal) are the others. Geico had been an official partner since 2019 but its association with the sport dates back nearly 20 years and The Martin Agency’s savagely funny campaign featuring a contemptuous young racing fan.

Jack Link’s is succeeding Geico as title sponsor of the popular race at Talladega. New brands on the circuit include Liquid Death, Kings Hawaiian, and and the electrification company ABB, which is working with Nascar on an electric racing vehicle. Country singer Chris Stapleton's Traveller Whiskey is sponsoring Justin Allgaier.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s fast-growing brand Busch Light is a longtime Nascar partner, and featured driver Ross Chastain in a regional Super Bowl ad this year.

New media deal

Nascar’s new media deal scatters its races across Fox, NBC, TNT and for the first time, Amazon Prime. The “Full Speed” series will air on Netflix, and the Xfinity Series, Nascar’s second-tier race circuit, will air on 200 regional affiliates of the CW network.

“My perspective is that those regional affiliates and CW are going to open up to a new audience,” the sports marketing executive said. “You then factor into Warner Brothers and Amazon, in addition to Fox and NBC, and I think they’re getting closer to what the NFL and college football has, where you’ve got multiple media networks not only covering the live action but their pundits and their content engines talking about the sport. I think that’s really positive.”

Nascar is changing its approach to recruiting new fans, Clark said, with less adherence to mass audiences and on-track action than its marketing might once have prescribed. “It’s probably less about marketing and more about meeting those audiences where they are, without any expectations of scale,” he said.

For example, Nascar has established a gaming presence, including within “Fortnite,” Roblox and Rocket League, finding a young audience that’s not likely to buy tickets for a race or even necessarily tune in to watch one—but can experience the brand through gaming. The popularity of Nascar-branded vehicles in Rocket League indicates the sport matters to the young fan, Clark said. “It tells me that that brand still resonates, that it’s still meaningful to a younger audience, and I think that’s the right way to kind of start the conversation with that more casual and younger fan.”

Nascar has also seen fashion come its way as the colorful firesuit designs of its heyday are showing up in the 90s nostalgia boom. Another throwback—Tom Cruise and Paramount are reportedly in discussions to make a sequel to the 1990 Nascar movie “Days of Thunder.”

The partnerships underscoring Nascar’s strategy will come to life at the Daytona 500, where the brand is expected to unveil a dazzling “hype video” inspired by college football creators and narrated by Anthony Mackie, star of “Captain America: Brave New World” and the Grand Marshal for the annual race.

Creech said she sees plenty of room for motorsports leagues in the U.S., noting for example that drivers like former F1 champion Kimi Räikkönen has competed in Nascar, and Nascar’s Kyle Larson has taken on the Indy 500.

“These crossovers can create opportunities to expose fans of one league to another,” she said. “Even outside of the competition, we’ve seen content of drivers from different leagues swapping cars and testing them out for fun. …  We can all win if we work together. Each league has its own unique offerings and personality.”